What you DONT know about your spa therapists!

With more and more spas and beauty salons opening in the United Arab Emirates the spa and beauty industry has become fiercely competitive.

Many of the hotel spas are looking for bespoke products and therapies to offer their clients, or unique themes and experiences.

This does not create client retention - mostly it creates ONE OFF visits!

Many spa managers and directors have to work within tight budgets as spas are renowned for having large areas within the spa that are not generating revenue but are an essential part of the spa experience.

This is short sightedness by your finance director - he/she needs to read this article.

Five star hotels in particular need to offer the spa experience and wow factor to their clients, as this is part of their whole hotel experience and essential to have renewed and regular visitors to the hotel that enjoy the spa treatments and feel good factor.

The biggest most important part of the spa, that is essential for revenue and repeat clients, that most spas in this region, United Arab Emirates and Middle Eastern countries tend to neglect is the expertise of the therapist and the training the therapists have received, as most are trained in house and do not hold professional qualifications.

This is mostly due to the influence of the finance directors or owners that are mostly focused on the bottom line as a professionally trained and qualified therapists, as with every professional in all industries, they will require a higher salary.

Why then is it important?

A professionally trained and qualified therapist brings so much more to the spa and their guests experience.

Recent case study of one of our students.

Sheila had been working as a massage and beauty therapist in a leading five-star hotel spa in the middle east for more than 10 years. She decided she wanted to have an international qualification so that she could enhance her career and earning potential.

At the beginning of her training, she chose to attend the 500 hours CIBTAC massage qualification so that eventually she would be able to have a DHA licence and possibly work in a wellbeing medical facility. After only two classes I asked her, how she found the training compared to how she had been trained over the years, in house? Her answer was “I never knew there was so much more to learn, I am stunned and love it”.

After she completed her training and obtained her qualifications, I asked her how was her work and clients experience with her massage and beauty treatments. Sheila had increased her sales and rebooking’s not by double, she was now fully booked and her boss was begging her not to take days off as everyone loved her treatments.

The result of Sheila taking the initiative to increase her professional qualifications and enhance her career worked well for her as she now has a higher paid, better job and the hotel increased their revenue not by a small amount, with only one therapist who increased her bookings from 40% to 100% with repeat business.

The same story happens with all our qualified therapists. Our training is to the highest international standard and the exams are rigorous with external examiners ensuring we the educators and our student therapists meet the highest professional international standards.

Why are managers and owners not investing in professional qualifications? They believe its not worth it and too expensive.